PEESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 7 



fouudland) are concerned, the Cambrian succession may now be regarded as having been 

 placed upon a stibstautial basis, and may serve as an invaluable guide towards removing 

 or lessening the obscurity still enveloping that succession elsewhere. 



The possibility of making such-divisions as have been referred to, and of satisfactorily 

 establishing their correspondence with those of the Cambrian zones recognized in other 

 parts of the world, is sufficient proof of the zeal, care, and ability with which these 

 minute investigations have been carried on by our associate ; but I cannot let this oppor- 

 tunity pass without adding my testimony, as that of one personally conversant with the 

 facts, to the energy and untiring perseverance which has led to such important results in 

 the face of difficulties which seemed at one time to be well-nigh insuperable. It may 

 be added that the field in this direction is even now only partially explored, and the studies 

 still in progress can hardly fail to enlarge still further our knowledge of this ancient and 

 earliest known era of undoubted organic existence. 



Our attention is again directed, in this connection, to the importance of the use of 

 the microscope in geological investigation, not only as revealing petrological distinctions 

 and conditions of origination not otherwise recognizable, but also as an aid in the search 

 for minute organic relics. Through its means, a series of rocks lying altogether below 

 the first trilobitic beds of the Cambrian, and to ordinary observation utterly barren of 

 fossils, is now known to be filled with the remains of sponges, radiolarians, etc., and 

 therefore shows what we may reasonably expect when the same method of study is applied 

 to the study of like formations, both in the old world and in the new, in which as yet but 

 few observations of this kind have been made. 



Of the formation next succeeding the Cambrian, that of the Cambro-Siluriau or 

 Ordovician, as occurring in New Brunswick, our knowledge is much less complete and 

 satisfactory. Very large areas, it is true, have, in reports of the Survey, been referred to 

 this horizon, and are so represented upon the accompanying maps, but always with 

 some degree of hesitation, and rather for the reason that this reference is more consistent 

 with such facts as we happen to possess, than that these facts are, for all the areas so re- 

 presented, entirely conclusive. At one point only, viz., on Beccaguimic Eiver, in Carle- 

 ton County, have fossils been found, including such genera as Obolella, Acrotrelu, Lhigida, 

 Leptœna, Orthis, Strophomena (?), Camerella or Rhynchonella and a Trilobite apparently identical 

 with the Trinuc/ens seticornis of Hisinger, as well as crinoidal or cystidean fragments and 

 sponge-like spicules, which, are certainly Lower Silurian (or Ordovirian) ; but the rocks 

 in which they occur, consisting of hard black siliceous and pyritiferous limestones, are 

 exposed over a very small area, and are quite different in character from anything which 

 has been elsewhere observed in the areas referred to this system. It is certainly very 

 remarkable that nothing corresponding directly either to the thick limestones of the 

 Trenton formation or the Utica shales, with their abundant fossils, has been met with 

 here. The bulk of the strata would seem rather to correspond to the less altered portions 

 of the so-called Quebec G-roup, consisting chiefly of slates and sandstones, which are 

 occasionally highly colored, but even with the latter, the correspondence, except over 

 limited areas, can hardly be regarded as very close, there being but little to represent the 

 coarse grits of the Sillery formation, and almost nothing to represent the heavy beds of 

 white quartzite, of limestone, or of limestone-conglomerate, which are so conspicuously 

 displayed along the south shore of the St. Lawrence. Another element of doubt in con- 



